


Touching Me, Touching You

by ForgingOurDestiny



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: (hopefully), Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Needs a Hug, And oh boy are they gonna get some, Cuddling, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Needs a Hug, Snuggling, Umm I'll add as I go, Whoops hurt/comfort too, like a lot of fluff, no beta we die like idiots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:20:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28759479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForgingOurDestiny/pseuds/ForgingOurDestiny
Summary: Adrien had never been hugged much as a child, the only physical affection he’d gotten was from his mother, and it had been so many years since he’d seen her. Gabriel wasn’t one for touching, and Nathalie had always attempted to maintain a professional distance, so the only affection he’d gotten recently was from Plagg and his Lady. When they had been snuggled up on the rooftop, he’d noticed how well she fit in his arms, how he seemed to be able to protect her from the world whist she was in his arms.~*~My poor cat boy is touch-starved, and the bug girl needs to Chill for once.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Nino Lahiffe, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	Touching Me, Touching You

**Author's Note:**

> So... here in England we're in Lockdown no. 3 and I am feeling cut off from any physical contact. I love my family, and I'm glad I'm with them at the minute, but it's hard to be affectionate with your family like you are with your friends, so guess who's using this story as a form of catharsis? (Hint: it's me)
> 
> Anyway, I hope you lot enjoy this!

Looking back, it had been obvious. What was worse was that Adrien could pinpoint the exact moment he realised it.

They had just finished patrol – it had been a quiet night, thank God, and so Ladybug had suggested that they spend the rest of their patrol taking a rare moment to relax for once. They’d stopped on a rooftop near to Hôtel de Ville, La Cathédrale Notre-Dame a shining beacon in front of them. It was uncommon for them to finish in this part of Paris, normally they finished far closer the Eiffel Tower.

It had been raining earlier in the day but the cold that had encroached as darkness fell had joined forces with the whipping, blistering wind, turning the leftover water into treacherous patches of ice. Even with the extra protection of his suit, Chat had to bolster himself against the wind and, over the course of the remainder of their patrol, found himself inching closer and closer to Ladybug. He could feel her warmth from where she sat next to him, his own little hot water bottle that he just couldn’t stay away from.

“Chat,” she whispered is his ear, “why do we still do this? I mean, I feel like this is all my life is now. I’ve had to sacrifice time I used to use for friends, and hobbies, and my _family_ , all so I can do this, protect this city. I feel like I’ve given _so much_ to this job and yet we’re no close to defeating Hawkmoth than we were two years ago!” Chat could do nothing but nod along; he wasn’t in quite the same situation as a result of being home-schooled for most of his academic career, but he’d had so many arguments with his father recently so that he could decrease his workload to be able to make it to patrols.

“I hate talking like this too, because it makes it sound like I hate doing this, but I don’t. Being Ladybug has helped me so much, in my ‘normal’ life as well, it’s just…” her head dropped onto his shoulder, “I feel like I’m being pulled in so many directions that I just don’t know… which way to turn.” Chat wrapped his arm around his Lady, pulling her closer when he saw tears dripping down her cheeks. She turned her head into his neck, which mumbled what she said, but he heard it anyway.

“Thank you for being here. I know I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.”

They stayed wrapped around each other for the rest of their patrol, reaching for each other, taking comfort in the other’s presence. Before they parted for the night, Ladybug was curled up against his side, her head tucked into his neck while Chat had his hands cupping her back, his cheek pressed back to the top of her head. Unravelling themselves proved to be difficult because neither wanted to let go and face the rest of the night alone.

Eventually, they left, and Adrien went to bed that night feeling colder and more alone than he ever had before. Not even Plagg, curled up and purring on his chest, could comfort him.

~*~

All Adrien could think about recently was his Lady in his arms. He’d never been hugged much as a child, the only physical affection he’d gotten was from his mother, and it had been so many years since he’d seen her. Gabriel wasn’t one for touching, and Nathalie had always attempted to maintain a professional distance, so the only affection he’d gotten recently was from Plagg and his Lady. When they had been snuggled up on the rooftop, he’d noticed how well she fit in his arms, how he seemed to be able to protect her from the world whist she was in his arms.

Adrien hadn’t realised that he was so starved for affection, but now he could see it. He loved when Nino put his arms around him, felt proud (and just a little content) when he had to save Marinette from falling on her face, couldn’t help but guiltily enjoy when Lila attached herself to his arm, because it meant _someone_ was touching him. Even the clinical touches of stylists and hair and make-up artists from his photoshoots was something he _cherished_. Looking back at it now, he just felt pathetic.

It had all seemed meaningless before, these little touches that he savoured, that he regarded as the highlights of his day. He’d thought it was because he loved these people, that he cared about them, but now he realised that he didn’t just want these touches, he craved them, needed them… the only problem was that he had no idea of how to go about asking for them. He didn’t think asking his best friends for hugs should be so hard, but whenever he was presented with the opportunity to ask Nino, or Alya, or Marinette, or even _Ladybug_ , he just froze. The words would stick in his throat, he couldn’t get them past his lips. They were fully formed, waiting to burst forward, but they couldn’t be forced out.

Eventually, it got to the point where even brushing against someone he cared about made him so desperate for more that he’d start purring. Sitting next to Marinette on the bus when they took a school trip to Le Château de Versailles was pure torture. She was there, right next to him, and instead of talking to her all he could think about doing was pulling her in so that she could rest against him, as Ladybug had nearly a month ago. When she fell asleep on the way back, her head against his shoulder and her hand fisted in his t-shirt, he thought he must have died and gone to heaven, because surely no mortal man would be able to experience such bliss while remaining on this torturous earthly plain.

The whole trip back, he felt pathetic. He was using Marinette, using her for his own personal gain, and she wasn’t even awake, couldn’t give her permission. What was worse was that he could feel Nino and Alya’s twin gazes burning into the back of his neck. They were judging him, he could tell – they knew that he was simply using his friend and they _hated_ him for it… hell, he hated _himself_ for it.

He went to move away from Marinette, reposition her carefully so she was leaning back against her seat instead of him, but when he moved, she only held on tighter, little grunts of disapproval leaving her lips. At those small noises, some possessive part of him _glowed_. She wanted him there, at least on some level. He allowed himself the smallest of shifts until he’d managed to get his arm around her and her head on his chest, and promptly fell asleep.

~*~

Marinette’s family had always been very physical with each other. Even on the worst of days, she could curl up next to either one of her parents and have them stroke her hair or hold her against them with little to no complaint. She knew she was lucky in this, that her family were so at ease with one another, but she supposed it came from it being only the three of them for as long as she could remember.

She knew she’d gotten lucky with Alya as well, who hugged her daily as if she’d never see her again (with the way the akuma’s had been getting more dangerous lately, it was becoming increasingly possible that she wouldn’t, but that wasn’t something Marinette liked to dwell on).

She knew she had people that were there for her, that would hug her and hold her as soon as she said the word, but after her patrol that she spent cuddled up with Chat, it just didn’t feel like enough anymore. Whenever she curled up on the sofa with Papa to watch some terrible TV programme, she felt ever so slightly smothered, when she and Alya would be huddled in each other’s arms after and akuma attack, she missed the feel of the toned arms of the young man she had just been fighting beside, and when she curled up in her bed at the end of a long day, with just her pillows and blankets for company, she missed the rigidity, the firmness that came with her partner holding her.

It had gotten so bad that she’d start daydreaming about just spending her patrols curled up in Chat’s arms, being protected for once instead of having to do the protecting. As time went by, she came to a very simple conclusion, one she realised had been staring her in the face for years: she wanted to be able to be weak.

Perhaps that was putting it too simply. Marinette wanted to be weak, not physically, but emotionally. She wanted to have someone shoulder her burden for a while and allow her to just collapse, recharge, until she could face the world again. She wanted someone to be strong so she could be weak, and the only person she could picture that happening with was Chat.

Despite presenting the joking tomcat persona to the general public, Marinette knew that he was sharp as a blade, and far more capable than even he believed himself to be. She knew he could handle it, but what was worse was that she knew that he _would_. He would let her fall apart, take the weight off of her shoulders gladly, and she didn’t know what to do with that. She knew that he’d do it, she was tempted to let him, but the thing that stopped her, the _one thing_ that _always_ stopped her, was guilt.

How could she ask her Kitty to bare something she was struggling to carry herself? It’s not that he couldn’t, she knew he could, but she was scared that it would crush him as it was crushing her, because he wouldn’t ever make her take it back. He’d carry her burdens until it killed him, and she knew he’d do it with a smile on his face. She couldn’t ask that of him, wouldn’t, vehemently refused to, even.

It would kill him, and then who would she turn to?

~*~

The trip to Versailles had been nice. Despite her apparent inability to focus on her classes, history had always fascinated her and to be in a place of such importance made quite the impact on her. From being the hunting lodge and château of Louis XIII, to being the place where the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919, shaping Europe after the First World War, the palace was a wonderland to her. She had brought her sketchbook with her in case inspiration struck in such an awe-inspiring place and she had scarcely closed it since her arrival. From the magnificent palace, both it’s interior and exterior, to the tranquillity of the sculpted gardens, Marinette was barraged with design, after design, after design. Ideas came at her so quickly that she couldn’t work on preliminary sketches, merely scribble them down in as much detail as possible before being forced to move onto the next lest she lose it forever.

In places such as this, she tended to drift from one place to another, so caught up in her surroundings and ideas that she paid extremely little attention to those around her. The only thing to even come close to breaking her out of her bubble was a near constant pressure on her elbow, guiding her back to the group whenever she strayed and pulling her along whenever she got left behind. Her brain was running a mile a minute, trying to keep up with the deluge of information flooding her senses.

Needless to say, that by the end of their trip, she was exhausted. As soon as she sat down, she could feel her seemingly endless energy leaving her, forcing her to survive on the fumes of what was left. The only things she remembered before slipping into the realm of unconsciousness was doing up her seatbelt, and the quirking up of her lips in response to the small smile Adrien sent her way.

**Author's Note:**

> That was something that I whipped up in *checks time* four hours, so it may not be the best, but this idea hasn't left me alone since I first thought of it, so here, take it. Comments warm my soul, and hopefully there'll be another update soon... don't hold me to that. TTFN, ta ta for now!


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